Rune learned many things from this attack, the most immediately applicable being his need to appoint a tough deputy he could rely on to keep the henchmoles in control when he was not around. He gave the task to the trusty Westsider Burrhead, knowing that his loyalty was sound and that he did not have sufficient wit to attempt to lead a coup against him.
He also decided he must quickly and ruthlessly inculcate group efficiency into the henchmoles—which he set about doing immediately, knowing there would be little time to lose before he heard from the Pasture moles.
The repercussions of this attack in the pastures, in the Marsh End and, finally, in Duncton Wood itself, were many and complex. Perhaps the most significant was Brome’s decision to take reprisals against Duncton—a move more or less forced upon him by the anger of the Pasture moles at the savagery of Rune’s attack. Brome was, in fact, reluctant to counterattack, since what little he had seen of the stocky Duncton moles suggested that they were individually far more powerful as fighters than Pasture moles, even though they were not always as big. There was an evil viciousness about the moles of Duncton, whose fur was generally so dark and whose bodies smelt of the dank wood. And who fought with cold ruthlessness.
For this reason, rather than enter into Duncton Wood, his method was to lure them on to the pastures one evening with a deliberately weak attack and spurious retreat by the wood’s edge, where he felt he could outmanoeuvre them. But he was wrong.
Rune had ruthlessly and efficiently disciplined his henchmoles, and they followed the fleeing Pasture moles so fast that they had killed most of them before they had advanced sufficiently to fall into the trap Brome had prepared. Suspecting it, Rune cunningly stopped his forces from advancing directly, circling instead through the unknown Pasture tunnels in the belief that they might outflank the Pasture moles in their own system. At the same time, Rune left sufficient henchmoles to guard the wood’s edge, with various small but very fast runners to keep the two groups in touch with each other.
Rune finally led his henchmoles into a vicious and bloody attack on Brome’s moles, coming at speed from an unexpected direction and moving forward with a solid resolution that took the Pasture moles by surprise.
Brome’s reaction was wise, and unimpressive, but saved the day. He retreated on all sides, using his popularity with the Pasture moles to persuade them to follow his advice and retire quickly so that the Duncton moles would have nomole to fight. The move was so effective that the impetus of the Duncton henchmoles was lost as they found burrow after burrow empty, and tunnel after tunnel echoing only with the sound of their own slowing paws and the groans of badly injured Pasture moles left behind in the flight.
At the same time, Brome sent two of his most trusted moles northeast towards the distant Marsh End to seek out Rebecca and with her help try to win the support of Mekkins. It was a long shot, but Brome saw clearly that a temporary retreat might indirectly win victory while a permanent retreat meant defeat. He would soon have to attack again, and the more friends he had, the better.
Rune’s cunning as leader improved every moment, and with his now customary speed of action he withdrew all the henchmoles back to the Westside, much against their wishes.
‘Have I not led you to victory so far?’ he asked the doubters coldly. ‘Trust me to do so now. This trick will bring the Pasture moles back.’
For two days there was an uneasy silence as the normally clear, sparse tunnels of the pastures, now deserted, began to reek of the stench of the dead, whose decay was hastened by the onset of summery June weather. During the day, birdsong filled the wood, skylarks hung in the air above the high pastures, and the fresh green of the leaves of Duncton Wood glistened and danced with sunshine before the warm June breeze.
But underground, moles on both sides were tense and anxious as each waited for the other to make a move.
Brome advanced his moles back to their original positions, at first puzzled by the Duncton moles’ disappearance, then seeing its logic. Rune must have guessed that after the successful killing of so many Pasture moles, their remaining forces would not want actually to enter the wood itself.
In the course of this advance, Brome was unexpectedly visited by Rebecca. She had refused to accompany his moles to the Marsh End, or even to show them the way, without first understanding what was going on. She did not like mass fighting and wanted no part in causing it. And anyway, she felt she should be where she could help. She shivered at the smell of carnage in the tunnels and her first words to Brome were the simple advice that he had best arrange for the dead to be dragged to the surface for the owls ‘or there won’t be a system worth living in anyway’.
This simple advice was to be the cause of one of the many remarkable myths that grew up around Rebecca. For soon after the advice was taken, the surface above the pasture was covered not by a plague of owls but by a mass of bristling, cawing, fighting crows, pecking at the dead moles and putting fear into the advance guards of the Duncton moles, watching out for signs of Pasture movement.
The idea that the Pasture moles ‘had the crows on their side’, as one of the scouts put it, was fearful indeed. While among the Pasture moles the arrival of the crows, simultaneous as it was with the coming of the mysterious, though increasingly popular Duncton healer, created the idea that Rebecca had the power to summon crows!
‘If Mekkins were to support us from the north,’ explained Brome, ‘then it would probably be worth our while standing our ground. We cannot retreat again, but I do not think we have the skill or strength to resist these Duncton moles by ourselves.’
Rebecca was doubtful. Fighting was not something she liked, although she conceded it was sometimes necessary.
‘What mole is leading the moles from Duncton?’ she asked curiously.
Brome shrugged. ‘He’s a good fighter, that’s for sure. Several of our moles report seeing a cunning-looking mole apparently in charge, quite big, very dark and with as evil a glitter about him as you would find in any nightmare.’
‘Rune!’ whispered Rebecca. Yes, in that case she would do what Brome wanted and try to summon Mekkins’ help.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I will go to the Marsh End—let’s hope Mekkins is still secure. I want to go. Things are happening down there, I think. Here too. It’s all changing, Brome, and whatever you try to do, there’s nothing you can do—but you must try.’ She laughed at his bewilderment at her words and added: ‘I only half understand what I’m saying myself. It’s all right!’
As Brome watched her leave, he thought to himself that there were times when she spoke with the same mysterious certainty Rose had sometimes had. As if she saw a world he could not see and there were no words to describe the realities within it. Yet as she left alone, how vulnerable she seemed, and for the first time he saw very clearly how much in need of protection she really was.
Two days later, as night fell, the battle started up again, first as a skirmish up near the wood’s edge where some Pasture moles went scouting about, and then as a full-scale battle in the Pasture tunnels themselves.
It was bloody and confused as under Brome’s quiet leadership every Pasture mole stood his ground against the brutal assault of the Duncton henchmoles. Brome had sensibly blocked several side tunnels, making it difficult for the henchmoles to advance en masse, and that much easier for them to be picked off one by one. But soon the henchmoles did manage their circling tactics again and the battle raged back and forth from tunnel to tunnel with little pattern except that slowly the Pasture moles began to retreat, moving back steadily towards bigger tunnels where, once the henchmoles were established, they would have room to manoeuvre and crush the Pasture moles with their greater ruthlessness and nerve. It was not that the Pasture moles lacked courage—just the opposite—but somehow they did not have the will to win that Rune inspired in his own moles.